Twas the day after Christmas

I suppose I should start with last week, which was good. I spent a lot of time reading, some time writing, and a little time thinking.

On Saturday, my brother and I volunteered to go to Walmart to do some grocery shopping for our mother. Beau wanted to show me his office anyway. So we drove down to the office and snuck through the halls (which were empty). He showed me pictures and cubicles and the room where he works. He has /two/ large flatscreen monitors and an expensive, fancy keyboard that has pressure sensitive volume control, a calculator, and the temperature and time built into it (on a little screen on the keyboard itself).

Then we went shopping. It wasn't too bad actually, considering it was the last "real" shopping day before Christmas (if you don't count Sunday) but it seemed to take forever to find everything. Perhaps it's organized so mothers can find everything, but definitely not for engineers and computer programmers. Why is the crumbled bacon bits next to the salad dressing instead of canned meats? Why is the crumbled blue cheese not there also? Why is it not with other cheeses? Why is there a hundred and fifty different brands that completely clog up the aisle? I came out feeling like Bugs Bunny when goes "eep! Guzzerp! Horp! Glep! dada-ipp!" And his limbs get twisted up.

I did take my blood pressure in there while my brother was looking for hair conditioner, if I had known what he was looking for, I could have told him it wasn't in the cosmetics, however much sense it made. My readings were 119 over 71 with a pulse of 62 bpm. Perhaps Keebler can tell me, but that sounds somewhat low, perhaps too low, I didn't know I was bodily dead already! Beau's was more normal, at 128 over 77 with a pulse of 74 bpm. Yes, we both bared our arms rather than try to take it through the jackets we were wearing.

Christmas day, I slept in a little (though the younger kids were bouncing around since 6:00) and showered. We started opening presents somewhere around 7:30 I believe. From my brother I received a boxed set of hardback books, /The Screwtape Letters/ and /Mere Christianity/ both by CS Lewis of course. He also bought me a rare, hard-to-find game for the GameCube (where you're a reporter taking pictures of an alien attack, really cool!) and season 2 of Stargate on DVD. He had to get me that since the end of last season, earth was under attack and we had NO IDEA how it was all going to turn out! We promptly watched a few episodes that afternoon.

It was a very relaxed day. My father cooked doughnuts and sausage for us, we had an afternoon lunch/early supper of corned beef, cabbage, and red potatoes with blue cheese mixed in. Autumn invited us all over for a Christmas party in "Animal Crossing" a video game that I showed Liz and Stephen I believe. We had a contest where we found arrows that had been strategically placed all over her town, and then handed out presents. I gave coconuts and received an orange, a shovel, and a chipped axe (which Autumn didn't want any more).

Now for the good stuff: What I've been reading.
"Fear not for the Church of Christ when ministers die, and saints are taken away. Christ can ever maintain His own cause. He will raise up better servants and brighter stars. The stars are all in His right hand. Leave off all anxious thought about the future. Cease to be cast down by the measures of statesmen, or the plots of wolves in sheep's clothing. Christ will ever provide for His own Church. Christ will take care that 'The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' All is going on well, though our eyes may not see it. The kingdoms of this world shall yet become the kingdoms of our God, and of His Christ."
-J.C. Ryle "Holiness" chapter XIII
I really liked that because I often wonder about the outcome of the church, especially the RP church, and even more specifically, the one in Stillwater. I don't think I worry, but it is comforting to be reminded of that above statement. All /IS/ going well, whether we see it or not.

Here's another one. In response to the argument that people without Christ do not go to hell because God is merciful and they hope He will be merciful to them, Ryle says:
"Merciful He is, beyond all question: rich in mercy, plenteous in mercy. But His mercy is inseparably connected with the mediation of His beloved Son Jesus Christ. It must flow through Him as the appointed channel, or it cannot flow at all."
Many people think they can plead mercy with God in the last day. Let it be known that he has provided a mercy, the greatest that ever was or can be! Yet people reject that. How futile it is for those who have rejected this gift, to expect another.

"We want more men and women who walk with God and before God, like Enoch, and Abraham. Though our numbers at this date far exceed those of our Evangelical forefathers, I believe we fall far short of them in our standard of Christian practice. Where is the self-denial, the redemption of time, the absence of luxury and self-indulgence, the unmistakable separation from earthly things, the manifest air of being always about our Master's business, the singleness of eye, the simplicity of home life, the high tone of conversation in society, the patience, the humility, the universal courtesy which marked so many of our forerunners seventy or eighty years ago? Yes: where is it indeed? We have inherited their principles and we wear their armour, but I fear we have not inherited their practice."
The more I read, the more I realize just how much things have changed. Entertainment seems to be all right to me, but it consumes most people (consuming the consumer). In the opposite, our spiritual ancestors were more often marked by a caring after the things of God. They lived in the world but it was clear that they were not of the world. Their lives showed a very clear-cut distinction between their habits, and the habits of those who feared not God.


Under the notes on Genesis 40 speaking of the butler and baker:
"We should not have had this story of Pharaoh's butler and baker recorded in scripture if it had not been serviceable to Joseph's preferment. The world stands for the sake of the church, and is governed for its good."
I just thought that was a very good point to be reminded of.

On the notes when Joseph leaves his steward to greet his brothers (on their second trip) and bids them wait until his master's return:
Though Joseph saw Benjamin there, he would not leave his work at working-time, nor trust another with it. Note, Business must take place of civility in its season. Our needful employments must not be neglected, no, not to pay respect to our friends."
Which is how I feel some times. There is a time for that sort of thing, but not at the expense of what must be done. Hopefully work wouldn't consume however.

Rachel's sad story. I was reminded again of truly how sad this makes me, the beloved wife of Jacob dies in childbirth. Henry pointed out that Rachel told Jacob "Give me children or I die!" Her wish was granted, she was given a plurality of children, yet she did die because of it.

In the story of the butler and baker, when the Butler forgets Joseph, Henry says:
"Some observe the resemblance between Joseph and Christ in this story. Joseph's fellow-sufferers were like the two thieves that were crucified with Christ-the one saved, the other condemned. (It is Dr. Lightfoot's remark, from Mr. Broughton). One of these, when Joseph said to him, Remember me when it shall be well with thee, forgot him; but one of those, when he said to Christ, Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom, was not forgotten. We justly blame the chief butler's ingratitude to Joseph, yet we conduct ourselves much more disingenuously towards the Lord Jesus. Joseph had but foretold the chief butler's enlargement, but Christ wrought our ours, mediated with the King of kings for us; yet we forget him, though often reminded of him, though we have promised never to forget him: thus ill do we requite him, like foolish people and unwise."
Which makes me recollect that this is true in my own life. Today I finished JC Ryle's "Holiness" and the final chapter was "Christ is All" wherein he describes how truly lovely Christ is and how necessary to the Christian. If our union with Christ be not our utmost goal, then we are not living as we ought. He is the firstborn, our Lord, our Head. How much should we then be in communion with Him and how much more should he be our talk! I admit my failings in this point very much. It was this love for Christ that caused Spurgeon, in everything he read in the Bible, to see Christ as the focal point. This same love I see in Matthew Henry who points to the promise of the Messiah throughout the Scriptures. He presents it as a homogeneous whole, not broken up into different plans and actings of God, but as one, glorious and eternal plan set forth abundantly throughout the pages of Scripture, for the coming of Christ and the redemption of His people.

Henry points out the "blessing" and "promise" in the patriarchal accounts, this blessing that Jacob coveted was probably because of his realization that this was the blessing promised to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Woven throughout his discourse (and throughout Scripture) is the religion, faith, and resting in God's promises held by the people of old. They did indeed have a hope and that hope was Christ. They did not know how it would all work out, they were in an era of shadows and types, yet they had faith and believed. But the focal point is Christ! In this age today I hear many people discounting the Old Testament as unnecessary for today's "modern" Christian. How much more appropriate and blessed is it now that we can see clearly? The same argument applies to the Psalms, why would we discard them at the moment when they become the most meaningful? We understand the shadows alluded to, we can look back with the light of the fullness of the gospel and see Christ upon every page. Christ should indeed be our all.

And that, is all I have.